The NRA Executive Vice President continued “The Second Amendment cannot survive without the NRA, and the NRA cannot survive without your help right now.”

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Who do you believe is the most intolerable member of congress?

Who do you believe is the most intolerable member of congress?

Who do you believe is the most intolerable member of congress?*

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York

Justin Amash, Michigan

Rashida Tlaib, Michigan

Joe Walsh, former Illinois representative

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This is in reference to the state of New York’s current campaign to shutdown some of the NRA’s insurance services.

LaPierre’s assertions have validity since the NRA has “run annual deficits of as much as $40 million.” Such financial troubles have seen the NRA become “mainly a media company, promoting a lifestyle built around loving guns and hating anyone who might take them away.”

Particularly interesting is Ackerman McQueen, a public-relations firm out of Oklahoma, and its involvement in cultivating the NRA’s brand. Many NRA figures such as Dana Loesch and Oliver North have received considerable payments from this firm.

However, this relationship has been a double-edged sword according to Mike Spies of The Trace. Spies claims that “a small group of NRA executives, contractors, and vendors has extracted hundreds of millions of dollars from the nonprofit’s budget, through gratuitous payments, sweetheart deals, and opaque financial arrangements.”

According to a memo from a senior NRA employee, the NRA workplace has been “distinguished by secrecy, self-dealing, and greed, whose leaders have encouraged disastrous business ventures and questionable partnerships, and have marginalized those who object.”

In 2017, when the NRA made its tax filings public, the organization has been placed under considerable scrutiny.

Marc Owens, who was the head of the Internal Revenue Service division that oversees tax-exempt enterprises, claims that the “litany of red flags is just extraordinary” after reviewing the NRA’s tax filings. Owens continued, “The materials reflect one of the broadest arrays of likely transgressions that I’ve ever seen. There is a tremendous range of what appears to be the misuse of assets for the benefit of certain vendors and people in control.”

Owens then concluded, “Those facts, if confirmed, could lead to the revocation of the NRA’s tax-exempt status”, effectively putting the organization’s existence in peril.

The NRA’s Carry Guard program has also earned it considerable criticism in recent times. This liability insurance program protects NRA members who use their firearms in self-defense.

Many on the anti-gun Left have derided this program as “murder insurance” and are now targeting it via financial regulations.

In the wake of the Parkland shooting, the State Department of Financial Services in New York has specifically targeted Carry Guard and declared that it “could no longer be sold in the state.”

This has prompted the NRA to take the DFS and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to court.

It remains to be seen how this decision will turn out, but the NRA is facing an unprecedented threat from anti-gunners.

Many gun owners on the no compromise side of the aisle have criticized NRA for not taking hardline stances in favor of fully restoring gun rights. BLP reported on NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris Cox defending red flag gun confiscation legislation a year ago.

However, this recent episode of the New York State government trying to punish the NRA shows the lengths the anti-gun Left will take to put the clamps on pro-gun organizations. They are willing to weaponize the U.S.’s flawed tax system as a means of shutting down conservative groups. If the NRA goes down, other organizations such as GOA and NAGR will likely be in their crosshairs.

The anti-gun Left is serious, and they will use whatever means necessary to achieve their goals, whether it’s corporate gun control or gun control at the state level.

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